We supported Iraq on the hopelessly flawed theory “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” There are pictures of Rumsfeld shaking hands with Hussein.

We gave chemical weapons to Iraq.

Our intelligence do not see the takeover of the US embassy in Iran coming.

Our CIA trained Bin Laden to fight Russia in Afghanistan. Now we are hunting Bin Laden and fighting in Afghanistan.

We have wasted trillion of dollars in both Iraq and Afghanistan and all we have to show for it is more enemies.

The US too often backs brutal dictatorships while mouthing that it supports democracy. Sure, sometimes international politics means you have to make alliances with the unsavory. But the US makes a practice of it. That strategy has now clearly failed.

It sure looks like governments will fall in the Middle East. Had we given an actual damn about democracy there, we could have helped and supported the protest movements. But as it is, the protesters have no reason to trust us or believe a word we say, and some of them may be running their countries soon. What a blown opportunity.